The Geelong metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of Victoria. Located south-west of the state capital, Melbourne, the port city is situated around Corio Bay and the Barwon River. The metropolitan area runs from the plains of Lara in the north to the rolling hills of Waurn Ponds to the south, with the bay to the east and hills to the west, an area with an estimated population of 160,891 people.[1] It is the administrative centre for the City of Greater Geelong municipality which covers the urban and surrounding areas and is home to over 181,000 people. An inhabitant of Geelong has been known as a Geelongite, or a Pivotonian, in the past.

Geelong was named in 1827, with the name derived from the local WathaurongAboriginal name for the region, Jillong, thought to mean "land" or "cliffs". The area was first surveyed in 1838, three weeks after Melbourne. The Post Office was open by June 1840 (the second to open in the Port Phillip District).
The first woolstore was erected in this period and it became the port for the wool industry of the Western District. During the gold rush Geelong experienced a brief boom as the main port to the rich goldfields of the Ballarat district. The city then diversified into manufacturing and during the 1860s it became one of the largest manufacturing centres in Australia with its wool mills, ropeworks, and paper mills.

It was proclaimed a city in 1910, with industrial growth from this time until the 1960s establishing the city as a manufacturing centre for the state,[2] and the population grew to over 4 by the mid-1960s. Population increases over the last decade were due to growth in service industries, as the manufacturing sector has declined. Redevelopment of the inner city has occurred since the 1990s, as well as gentrification of inner suburbs and currently has a population growth rate higher than the national average.

Early history and foundation

The first non-Indigenous person recorded as visiting the region was Lt. John Murray, who commanded the brig .[3] After anchoring outside Port Phillip Heads (the narrow entrance to Port Phillip, onto which both Geelong and Melbourne now front) on 1 February 1802 he sent a small boat with six men to explore. Led by John Bowen they explored the immediate area, returning to the Lady Nelson on 4 February. On reporting favourable findings, the Lady Nelson entered Port Phillip on 14 February, and did not leave until 12 March. During this time, Murray explored the Geelong area and, whilst on the far side of the bay, claimed the entire area for Britain. He named the bay Port King, after Philip Gidley King,[4] then Governor of New South Wales. Governor King later renamed the bay Port Phillip after the first governor of New South Wales, Arthur Phillip. Arriving not long after Murray was Matthew Flinders, who entered Port Phillip on 27 April 1802.[3] He charted the entire bay, including the Geelong area, believing he was the first to sight the huge expanse of water, but in a rush to reach Sydney before winter set in he left Port Phillip on 3 May.

In January 1803, Surveyor-General Charles Grimes arrived at Port Phillip in the sloopCumberland and mapped the area, including the future site of Geelong,[4] but reported the area was unfavourable for settlement and returned to Sydney on 27 February. In October of the same year, the HMS Calcutta led by Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins arrived in the bay to establish the Sullivan Baypenal colony.[4] Collins was dissatisfied with the area chosen, and sent a small party led by First Lieutenant J.H. Tuckey to investigate alternate sites. The party spent 22 October to 27 October on the north shore of Corio Bay, where the first Aboriginal death at the hands of a European in Victoria occurred.[4]

The next European visit to the area was by the explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell. They reached the northern edge of Corio Bay - the area of Port Phillip that Geelong now fronts - on 16 December 1824, and it was at this time they reported that the Aborigines called the area Corayo, the bay being called Jillong.[3] Hume and Hovell had been contracted to travel overland from Sydney to Port Phillip, and having achieved this they stayed the night and began their return journey two days later on 18 December.[5]

In March 1826, three squatters, David Fisher, James Strachan and George Russell arrived on the Caledonia and settled the area.[4] Geelong was first surveyed by Assistant Surveyor, W. H. Smythe three weeks after Melbourne, and was gazetted as a town on 10 October 1838.[3] There was already a church, hotel, store and wool store, 82 houses, and the town population was 545.[3] By 1841, the first wool had been sent to England and a regular steamer service was running between Geelong and Melbourne.[6] Captain Foster Fyans was commissioned as the local PoliceMagistrate in 1837 and established himself on the Barwon River at the site of the area of present-day Fyansford. Fyans constructed a breakwater to improve the water supply to the city by preventing the salty lower reaches from mixing with fresh water and pooling water.

The Geelong Keys were discovered around 1845 by Governor Charles La Trobe on Corio Bay. They were embedded in the stone in such a way that he believed that they had been there for 100–150 years, possibly dropped by Portuguese explorers. In 1849, Fyans was nominated as the inaugural Mayor of the Geelong Town Council.[7] An early settler of Geelong, Alexander Thomson, for which the area of Thomson in East Geelong is named, settled on the Barwon River, and was Mayor of Geelong on five occasions from 1850–1858.

1850s: Gold rush

Gold was discovered in nearby Ballarat in 1851, causing the Geelong population to grow to 23,000 people by the mid-1850s.[3] To counter this, a false map was issued by Melbourne interests to new arrivals, showing the quickest road to the goldfields as being via Melbourne.[3] The first issue of the Geelong Advertiser newspaper was published in 1840 by James Harrison, who also built the world's first Ether Vapour Compression Cycle ice making and refrigeration machine in 1844, later being commissioned by a brewery in 1856 to build a machine that cooled beer.

In 1866 Graham Berry started a newspaper, the Geelong Register, as a rival to the established Geelong Advertiser. When this proved unsuccessful, he bought the Advertiser and made himself editor of the now merged papers. Using the paper as a platform, he was elected for West Geelong in 1869. In 1877 he switched to Geelong, which he represented until 1886, and served as Victorian Premier in 1875, 1877–1880, and 1880–1881. On the Market Square in the middle of the city, a clock tower was erected in 1856, and an Exhibition Building was opened in 1879.

1860s: The 'Sleepy Hollow'

The gold rush had seen Ballarat and Bendigo grow larger than Geelong in terms of population. Melbourne critics dubbed Geelong 'Sleepy Hollow',[3] a tag that recurred many times in the following years. A number of industries became established in Geelong, including Victoria's first woollen mill at South Geelong in 1868. In 1869 the clipperLightning caught fire at the Yarra Street pier and was cast adrift in Corio Bay to burn before finally sunk by artillery fire.[6] Improvements to transport saw Geelong emerge as the centre of the Western District of Victoria, with railway lines extended towards Colac in 1876, and to Queenscliff in 1879.[9] Construction of the Hopetoun shipping channel began in 1881 and completed in 1893.[8]

The Geelong Cup was first held in 1872 and Victoria's first long distance telephone call was made from Geelong to Queenscliff on 8 January 1878, only one year after the invention of the device itself.[8] Geelong was also the home of a prosperous wine industry until the emergence of the grapevine eating insect phylloxera vastatrix in 1885, which killed the industry until the 1960s.[8] Between 1886 and 1889 the central business district's major banks and insurance companies erected new premises in a solid and ornate character.[3] The existing Geelong Post Office was built during this time and the Gordon Technical College was established. Further industrial growth occurred with the Fyansford cement works established in 1890.

The town became known as 'the Pivot' in the 1860s owing to its being a central rail and shipping hub to Melbourne, Ballarat and the western district.

By 1936 Geelong had displaced Ballarat as Victoria's second largest city.

In 1938 one of the last Port Philip Bay steamers, Edina, made its final trip to Geelong, ending a romantic period of seaside excursions and contests for the fastest trip. The Eastern Beach foreshore beautification and pool was completed in 1939 after almost 10 years of work.[8]

Post-war period

Geelong continued to expand with Corio, Highton and Belmont growing at such a rate that in February 1967 Geelong accounted for 21 percent of private home development in Greater Melbourne.[3] Private vehicles became the city's major mode of transport. The first parking meters in the city were introduced in 1961, new petrol stations were constructed and the city's first supermarket, operated by Coles, opened in 1965.[3] Industrial growth continued with a second cement works operating at Waurn Ponds by 1964[9] and the Alcoa Point Henry aluminium smelter constructed in 1962.[10]

Market Square, the first enclosed shopping centre in the city was opened in 1985, with neighbouring Westfield Geelong (formerly Bay City Plaza) opened in 1988. The Pyramid Building Society, founded in Geelong in 1959, collapsed in 1990 leaving debts of A$1.3 billion to over 200,000 depositors, and causing the Geelong economy to stagnate. On 18 May 1993 the City of Greater Geelong was formed by the amalgamation of a number of smaller municipalities with the former City of Geelong.[11] The Waterfront Geelong redevelopment started in 1994 designed to enhance use and appreciation of Corio Bay and in 1995 the Barwon River overflowed in the worst flood since 1952.

21st century

In 2004 Avalon Airport was upgraded to accommodate interstate passenger travel, providing a base for the low-cost airline Jetstar to service the Melbourne and Geelong urban areas.[12] Geelong is planned to expand towards the south coast, with 2,500 hectares of land to become a major suburban development for between 55,000 to 65,000 people, known as Armstrong Creek.[13] In 2006, construction began on the Geelong Ring Road, designed to replace the Princes Highway through Geelong from Corio to Waurn Ponds. It opened in 2009.

More than A$500 million worth of major construction was under way in 2007. Major projects include the $150 million Westfield Geelong expansion works, involving a flyover of Yarra Street, the city's first Big W store and an additional 70 new speciality stores; the $37 million Deakin Waterfront campus redevelopment and the $23 million Deakin Medical School; the $50 million Edgewater apartment development on the waterfront; a number of multi-million dollar office developments in the CBD; and a new $30 million aquatic centre in Waurn Ponds.[14]

Major developments within Geelong are advocated by the region's formal alliance, G21 Geelong Region Alliance. The City of Greater Geelong and four other local municipalities form part of the alliance which identifies the Geelong region's priorities, advocate all levels of government for funding and implement the projects. G21 developed 'The Geelong Region Plan - a sustainable growth strategy' which was launched by Premier Brumby in 2007. It is the approved strategic plan for the Geelong region. In addition, major projects such as the Geelong Ring Road Connections and duplication of the Princes Highway West have obtained funding due to the combined efforts of the region's municipalities. As at November 2011, there are 13 Priority Projects for the Geelong region.

The Victorian Government announced the relocation of the Transport Accident Commission headquarters from Melbourne to Geelong in October 2006, which created 850 jobs and an annual economic benefit of over $59 million to the Geelong region. The construction of the $80 million Brougham Street headquarters was completed in late 2008. In November 2008 Ford Australia announced that its Australian designed I6 engine would be re-engineered to meet the latest emissions regulations and that consequently the engine manufacturing plant would be upgraded.

A change to the city skyline is occurring with a number of modern apartment buildings on the Waterfront and central business district planned or under construction. On 10 July 2008 approval was given for a $100 million twin tower apartment complex of 16 and 12 floors to be built on Mercer St in the city's Western edge. The towers will become the tallest buildings in the city, taking the title from the Mercure Hotel. Further highrise developments are planned as part of the City of Greater Geelong's Geelong Western Edge strategic plan. A $17 million 11-story apartment tower has also recently been proposed to be built next to the Deakin Waterfront Campus.

In 2012 a design competition for a "city icon" was run for the City of Geelong by Deakin University and Senia Lawyers. The recipient of the prize and winning design entry was JOH Architects and their design titled "The Sea Dragon".